Just Be

Sometimes the best thing we can do is to stop “doing” and just be. You don’t have to “be” anything. We don’t have to “be” quiet, or productive, or useful, or nice. Just be.

In his brilliant album that gave music and lyrics to Richard Bach’s Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Neil Diamond wrote:

Be, as a page that aches for a word that speaks on a theme that is timeless.

These words appear nowhere in Richard Bach’s writing. They are Neil Diamond’s interpretation of what he thought Bach was trying to say. I think Diamond nailed it!

Be … as a blank page … that is aching for words … that speak on a theme that is timeless. Sometimes it’s okay to just be.

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